CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2023-42464 — A Type Confusion vulnerability was found in the Spotlight RPC functions in afpd in Netatalk 3.1.x before 3.1.17

Critical CVSS 9.8

A Type Confusion vulnerability was found in the Spotlight RPC functions in afpd in Netatalk 3.1.x before 3.1.17. When parsing Spotlight RPC packets, one encoded data structure is a key-value style dictionary where the keys are character strings, and the values can be any of the supported types in the underlying protocol. Due to a lack of type checking in callers of the dalloc_value_for_key() function, which returns the object associated with a key, a malicious actor may be able to fully control the value of the pointer and theoretically achieve Remote Code Execution on the host. This issue is similar to CVE-2023-34967.

Severity
Critical
CVSS
9.8 (3.1)
Published
2023-09-20
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-843

Affected products

  • netatalk / netatalk
  • debian / debian_linux / 10.0
  • debian / debian_linux / 11.0

Matched remediation archetype

Command, code, expression, and template injection

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Trace untrusted values to process execution, interpreters, evaluators, template engines, dynamic imports, and administrative scripting features.
  • Determine whether the affected path is reachable across each trust boundary and which service account or host privilege it inherits.
  • Review configuration for optional execution features, unsafe compatibility modes, and shell invocation.

Remediate safely

  • Replace string-built commands or evaluated code with fixed operations and structured argument APIs that do not invoke a shell.
  • Use strict allowlists for operation identifiers and reject unexpected input before it reaches any interpreter.
  • Update the affected component and add inert regression tests covering metacharacters, encoding variants, and alternate request paths.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

The detailed catalog view below loads this exact record, its source evidence, and the full seven-phase agentic change plan.